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Read the first pages of 'The Kingdom', Jo Nesbo's most literary 'thriller'

2021-05-07T14:39:51.050Z


The Norwegian author puts Harry Hole aside to jump in his career with this novel set in a small community on a mountain. A story that talks about family, secrets and bad omens and of which we offer this exclusive preview


The prodigal son returns from the United States with his prestige and his enigmatic wife.

There he meets Roy, his brother, a lonely guy from the mountains, an expert on birds.

But in small communities, and this is it, it is not so easy to forget or for people to forget.

And the past weighs.

Welcome to 

The kingdom

, the great literary bet of Jo Nesbo.


                                                    Foreword

It was the day Dog died.

I was sixteen, Carl fifteen.

A few days before, Dad had shown us the hunting knife with which I killed him.

It had a broad blade that gleamed in the sun and grooves on the sides.

Dad explained to us that the grooves were used to divert blood when you butchered the prey.

Just hearing that Carl turned pale and Dad asked if he was going to throw up in the car again.

I think that's why Carl set out to shoot whatever it was, anything, and if it had to be dismembered, turn it into little pieces of shit.

"I'll fry it later and we'll eat it," he said in front of the barn, my head stuck in the engine of Dad's Cadillac DeVille.

Him, mom, you and me.

Voucher?

"Okay," I said as I twisted the distributor cap to find the contact.

"And I'll give Dog something too," he said.

There will be enough for everyone.

"Of course," I said. Dad always said he had named Dog because at that moment nothing else occurred to him. But I think he loved that name. He was like him, who never said more than the essentials and was so American that he could only be Norwegian. I loved that animal very much. I suspect he appreciated his company more than that of any human being. 

Our mountain farm may not be much of a thing, but it has views and pastures, enough for Dad to call it his kingdom. Day after day, from my position permanently leaning over the Cadillac, I would see Carl driving away with Daddy's dog, Daddy's shotgun, and his knife. I saw how they were transformed into two little points on the bare mountain. But I never heard any gunshots. Back at the farm Carl always said there were no birds, and I kept quiet, even though I had seen one flock of partridges after another taking off from the hillside and indicating more or less where Carl and Dog were. Then the day came when shots were finally heard. I gave such a jump that I hit my head on the hood.I wiped the oil off my fingers and looked up at the heather-covered hillside as the sound continued to reverberate like thunder over the village by Lake Budalsvannet. Ten minutes later Carl came running to the farm, and when he figured he was close enough for Mom or Dad to see him from the main house, he slowed. Dog wasn't with him. Nor did he carry the shotgun. I suppose that already then I more or less understood what had happened and I went out to meet him. When he saw me he turned around and slowly retraced his steps. When I caught up with him, I saw that his cheeks were full of tears.When he figured he was close enough for Mom or Dad to see from the main house, he slowed down. Dog wasn't with him. Nor did he carry the shotgun. I suppose that already then I more or less understood what had happened and I went out to meet him. When he saw me he turned around and slowly retraced his steps. When I caught up with him, I saw that his cheeks were full of tears.When he figured he was close enough for Mom or Dad to see from the main house, he slowed down. Dog wasn't with him. Nor did he carry the shotgun. I suppose that already then I more or less understood what had happened and I went out to meet him. When he saw me he turned around and slowly retraced his steps. When I caught up with him, I saw that his cheeks were full of tears.

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"I've tried," she said between sobs.

They have taken flight, they were many and I have aimed, but I have not been able.

I wanted you to hear that I had at least tried, but I lowered the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

And when the birds have disappeared and I have looked, I have seen Dog lying on the ground.

-Dead?

-I asked for.

"No," Carl said, and began to cry uncontrollably.

But… he's dying.

He bleeds from his mouth and his eyes are shattered.

He is lying on the ground moaning and shaking.

"Run," I said.

We ran.

After a few minutes I saw something moving in the heather.

It was a tail, Dog's tail, that had smelled us.

We observe it from above.

The dog's eyes looked like two broken egg yolks.

"There's nothing to do," I said, and not because I'm an experienced vet like any cowboy in Western movies, but because, if a miracle happened and Dog survived, the life of a blind hunting dog wasn't worth it. .

You have to shoot him.

-Me?

Carl exclaimed, as if he didn't believe that I had even proposed that he, Carl, take the life of whatever it was.

I looked at him.

I looked at my little brother.

"Give me the knife," I said.

He handed me our father's hunting knife.

I put a hand on top of Dog's head, who licked my forearm.

I caught him by the skin of his neck and cut his neck with the other.

But I was too cautious.

Nothing happened, Dog just squirmed.

I didn't get to the bottom until the third try and it was like when you cut the juice carton too low, the blood seemed to spill out like it had been waiting to be released.

"Like this," I said, dropping the knife into the heather.

I saw the blood in the grooves and wondered if the stream of blood had splattered my face, because I felt something hot slide down my cheek.

"You're crying," Carl said.

"Don't tell Dad."

–What have you cried?

–That you have not been able to sacrifice ... that you have not sacrificed it.

We will say that I made the decision, but that you have made it.

Agree?

Carl nodded.

-Agree. 

I carried the body of the dog on my shoulder.

It weighed more than it looked and was slipping.

Carl offered to drive him, but when I told him I didn't notice him relieved.

I left Dog at the barn ramp, went into the house, and looked for Dad.

I gave him the explanation we had agreed upon as we returned.

He said nothing, just squatted in front of his dog and nodded as if he had somehow expected something like this to happen, as if it were his fault.

Then he stood up, took the shotgun from Carl, and tucked Dog's body under his arm.

"Come on," he said, walking up the ramp to the barn.

He put Dog on a bed of straw and this time he knelt down, lowered his head and murmured a few words, I think one of those American psalms that was known.

I watched my father, a man I had seen all my short life, but never like this.

Shattered.

When he turned to us, he was still pale, but his lips were no longer trembling and his gaze reflected his usual calm determination.

"Now it's our turn," he said.

So it was.

Despite the fact that Dad had never hit us, it seemed to me that Carl was shrinking next to me.

Dad stroked the barrel of the shotgun.

"Which of you was the one who ..." he said and, as he searched for the words, stroked the shotgun over and over again, "stabbed my dog ​​with the knife?"

Carl blinked over and over like he was terrified.

He opened his mouth.

"It was Carl," I replied.

But it occurred to me that it had to be done and that he should take care of it.

-Oh yeah?

Dad looked at Carl and then at me again.

Do you know what?

My heart is crying.

Cry and I only have one consolation.

Do you know what it is?

We were silent, because when dad talked like that we shouldn't respond.

-That I have two sons who today have proven to be men. That they have assumed responsibilities and made decisions. Do you know what the torment of choosing consists of? What distresses you is the fact of choosing, not the decision you end up making. Knowing that, whatever you choose, you will spend sleepless nights torturing yourself with the doubt if you did the right thing. You could have run away from this choice, but you faced a painful decision. Let Dog live and suffer, or let Dog die and be his killers. It takes a lot of courage not to slip away when faced with a situation like this. He held out his big hands. One landed on my shoulder, the other on Carl's, a little higher. When he spoke again, the timbre of his voice reminded me of Armand, the preacher.

- What differentiates men from beasts is the ability to choose not the easiest path, but the one with the highest morals.

Her eyes were again veiled with tears.

I'm a downed man, but I'm very proud of you guys.

It was not only the most intense speech, but also the longest and most coherent speech I had ever heard from my father.

Carl burst into tears, and the truth is that I myself had a fucking lump in my throat.

"Now we are going to tell Mom."

The idea couldn't scare us anymore.

Mom had to go for a long walk every time Dad went to slaughter a goat, and he came back red-eyed.

On the way home, Dad lingered a bit to talk to me aside.

"Before she hears your version of events, you'd better wash your hands more thoroughly," he said.

I looked up, prepared for what might come, but on his face I saw only calm and tired resignation.

Then he stroked the back of my neck.

As far as I can remember, I never had before.

And he never did it again.

"You and I are the same, Roy."

We are tougher than people like Mom and Carl.

So we have to take care of them.

Forever.

Do you get it?

-Yes.

-We are a family.

We have each other, no one else.

Friends, girlfriends, neighbors, townspeople, the State.

They are all an illusion and they are not worth shit the day you really put them to the test.

So it's us against them, Roy.

Us against everyone else.

Voucher?

-Voucher.

                                                    I

I heard it before I saw it. Carl had returned. I don't know why I remembered Dog, twenty years had passed, but perhaps I suspected that this sudden and unexpected return was due to the same reason as then. The usual reason. He needed the help of his older brother. At that time I was in the courtyard and looked at the clock. Half past two. He had only sent me a message to say that they would be arriving around two o'clock. But my little brother has always been optimistic and promises a little more than he can deliver.

I observed the landscape. The little that peeked out from the cloud layer that spread out at my feet. Across the valley the hill seemed to float on a gray sea. Here, in the heights, the vegetation began to take on the reddish tones of autumn. The sky above my head was blue and limpid, like a girl's innocent gaze. The air was cool and beneficial, and if you took a deep breath it would sting in your lungs. It seemed to me that I was alone in the world, as if it were only for me. Well, a world consisting of Mount Ararat with a farm on top.

Sometimes tourists would take the curvy road and come to take in the views; sooner or later, they ended up in our yard. They used to ask if I was still running the little farm. Those idiots called it small because, surely, they believed that a real farm had to be like the ones on the plain, with large fields, huge barns and huge and ostentatious houses. They hadn't seen the damage a mountain storm could do to a roof that was too big, nor had they tried to light a fireplace in an excessively spacious room when it's thirty degrees below zero and the wind is blowing through the walls. They did not know the difference between cultivated land and virgin land, which in a mountain farm herds herd and can be a depopulated kingdom,but much larger than the gaudy cereal fields of the lowlands.

He had lived here in solitude for fifteen years, but that was going to end. A V8 roared and hissed somewhere under the cloud cover. It sounded so close that it must have passed the so-called 'Japansvingen' by now, halfway up the climb. The driver accelerated, took his foot off the pedal, took one of the sharp turns, and accelerated again. Closer and closer. You could tell that it was not the first time that he had driven through those twists and turns. And when I could make out the nuances of the engine sound, the deep sighs when shifting gears, the deep bass that only a Cadillac has at low revs, I knew it was a DeVille. Just like the huge black car that dad owned. Of course. The aggressive nose of a DeVille's grille peeked out of what we called "Geitesvingen." Also black, but a more recent model, I assumed 85.But with the same ornaments.

The car pulled up and the driver rolled down his window.

I was hoping it wouldn't show that my heart was racing.

How many letters, messages and emails would we have exchanged in all these years?

Not many.

Yet had a single day gone by without her thinking of Carl?

Probably not.

But it was better to miss him than to deal with his problems.

The first thing I noticed is that he had aged. 

"Excuse me, sir, do you know if this farm belongs to the famous Opgard brothers?"

Then he smiled. He gave me one of his warm, irresistible smiles, and it was as if no time had passed on his face, as if the calendar that told me that fifteen years had passed since I had last seen him was wrong. But her gaze also conveyed a certain calculation, as if she were checking the temperature of the water before bathing. I didn't feel like laughing. Not yet. But I couldn't help it. My brother got out of the car and spread his arms. I walked over and we merged into a hug. Something tells me it should have been the other way around. That it was me, the older brother, who should have opened his arms to welcome the one who was returning home. But at some point in the past the division of roles between Carl and I had become very confusing. He had grown older than me, both physically and personally, and,at least when we were in the company of third parties, it was he who was in charge. I closed my eyes, shivering, and breathed in the smell of autumn, of Cadillac, of my little brother. She wore some kind of masculine fragrance, as they call them. The passenger door had been opened. Carl released me and led me around the prominent hood of the car to where she waited looking out over the valley.

"This place is beautiful," he said.

She was a small, thin woman, but her voice was deep. He had a heavy accent and the intonation was wrong, but at least he spoke Norwegian. I wondered if I had rehearsed the phrase during the trip, if I had decided to say that, whether or not it was true, to like me, whether I wanted to or not. Then he turned to me and smiled. The first thing I saw was that his face was white. Not that it was pale, but that it was white as snow and reflected light to the point that it was difficult to make out its outline. The second, that she had a half-drooping eyelid, like a blind, as if half of her were drowsy. But the other half seemed to be very awake. A lively brown eye that was watching me intently; her hair, flaming red, was cut short.He wore a simple black coat with no waistband and there was no hint of any form underneath either, just a black high-necked sweater peeking out between the lapels. The first impression was that it was a puny kid, photographed in black and white, whose hair had been colored

a posteriori

.

Carl had always been good with women, so I have to admit he was surprised. Not that she wasn't cute, I suppose she was, but she wasn't a "hottie," as they say around here. He was still smiling, and since the teeth didn't show much from the skin, they were just as white. Carl also had white teeth, he always had them, not like me. I used to joke that his were whitened by the sun because he smiled so much more than I did. Maybe that's why they had fallen in love, because of the white teeth. The image in the mirror. Because even though Carl was tall and stocky with blond hair and blue eyes, I saw the resemblance instantly. Certain positive outlook on life, as they say. Optimism, the will to see the best in human beings. In themselves and in others. Well, he didn't really know the girl yet.

"This is…" Carl began.

"Shannon Alleyne," she interrupted, offering me a hand so small that I had the sensation of grasping a chicken leg.

"… Opgard," Carl added proudly.

Shannon Alleyne Opgard wanted to hold my hand longer.

In that I also recognized Carl.

There are people more in a hurry to fall in grace than others.

"Jet lag?"

I said, and I regretted saying it, I felt like an idiot for asking.

Not because he didn't know what jet lag was, but because Carl knew that I hadn't changed time zones in my life and that, for that matter, his answer wouldn't mean much to me.

Carl shook his head.

"We landed two days ago."

We had to wait for the car to arrive, it came by boat.

I nodded and looked at the license plate.

MC Monaco.

Exotic, but not enough to ask for the plates if they planned to search here.

In the office of the gas station I had hanging plates in disuse of French Guiana, Burma, Basutoland, British Honduras and Johor.

The bar was high.

Shannon was looking at us both.

Smiled.

I don't know why, maybe he was just glad to see Carl with his older brother, his only close relative, laughing together.

Perhaps she was glad that the little tension there had been at first had evaporated.

That he, they, were welcome at home.

"Will you show Shannon around the house while I pack up?"

Carl asked and opened the trunk, as Dad called it.

"It'll probably take the same time," I murmured to Shannon, who was following me.

We walked around the house to the north-facing front door.

I honestly don't know why Dad didn't want the door to open onto the yard and the road.

Perhaps because when he left in the morning he liked to have all our lands in view.

Or because it was more important that the sun warmed the kitchen than the hall.

We crossed the threshold and I opened one of the three doors.

"The kitchen," I said, realizing that it smelled of rancid grease.

Had it always been like this?

"How pretty," she lied.

Okay, I had ordered it and even washed it, but it wasn't pretty.

Wide-eyed and perhaps a little concerned, her gaze followed the chimney flue leading from the wood stove and through a serrated hole in the ceiling toward the first floor.

Dad had called it fine carpentry, a perfectly round hole through which the pipe passed and which kept the wood from catching fire.

In such a case it would be, together with the round holes in the outhouse outside the house, the only example of such fine woodwork on the entire farm.

I turned the light on and off to show him that at least we had electricity.

-Coffee?

I asked and turned on the tap.

"Thanks, maybe later."

Norwegian politeness had been learned.

"Carl will want to," I said, opening the cupboard.

I rummaged inside until I found the coffee pot. He had actually bought ground coffee for the first time in… a long time. It was good for me with instant coffee. As I brought the coffee pot to the tap, I noticed that, out of habit, I had turned on the hot water. I noticed my ears were burning. But who said it is painful to make instant coffee with hot tap water? Coffee is coffee and water is water.

I put the coffee pot on the plate, turned it on, and took a couple of steps to the door of one of the two rooms that flanked the kitchen. One was the dining room, which was closed in winter as it served as a barrier against the gales that blew from the west and we ate in the kitchen. On the other side was the living room, with shelves, a television, and a wood stove. The south-facing sunroom was the only extravagance Dad had allowed himself in the house - he called it the porch and Mom the conservatory, even though in winter it was closed, of course, and protected by a barricade of shutters. . But in the summer Dad would sit there chewing Berry brand tobacco and drinking a Budweiser or two, both of which were outrageous. To buy pale American beer you had to go to town,and the silver boxes of Berry Chewing Tobacco were sent to him from across the ocean by an American relative. Dad explained to me very early that, unlike Swedish shit, American chewing tobacco goes through a fermentation process, and it shows in the taste.

"Like bourbon," Dad said, claiming that Norwegians ate that Swedish shit because they hadn't tasted any better.

Well, at least I did, and when I started chewing tobacco, I chose the Berry brand.

Carl and I used to count the empty bottles my father left on the windowsill.

We knew that if he drank more than four he could cry, and no one wants to see his father cry.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's why I rarely drank more than a beer or two.

I didn't want to cry.

Carl was drunk happily, perhaps that was why he felt less need to set limits.

All this I was thinking, without saying anything, as we climbed the stairs and showed Shannon the largest bedroom, which Dad called "the master bedroom."

"Fantastic," he said.

I wanted to show him the new bathroom, which was no longer new, but it was the newest piece in the house.

I suppose if I told Shannon that we grew up without a bathroom, she wouldn't believe me.

That we washed downstairs, in the kitchen, with water that we heated on the stove.

That the bathroom came after the car accident.

If what Carl had written was true, that she was from Barbados, from a family that had been able to afford to send her to study in Canada, it was natural that she had a hard time imagining that when I bathed I shared gray water with my brother and that in the middle of winter we were shivering with cold in that basin.

While dad, paradoxically, had a Cadillac DeVille parked in the yard because you had to have a car in good condition.

The nursery door was jammed, so I had to yank the knob.

When I finally opened it, memories and a whiff of a closed smell enveloped me, as if it were a closet full of old clothes that I had forgotten.

Along the wall was a desk with two chairs lined up.

Opposite, a bunk took up the rest of the space.

At one end, sticking out of the hole in the floor, was the stovepipe from the kitchen.

"Here Carl and I slept."

Shannon nodded at the bunk.

"Who got upstairs?"

-Me.

The oldest.

-

I ran a finger through the dust that covered the back of one of the chairs.

I'll move here and give you the big bedroom.

She looked at me in horror.

"But Roy, we don't want you to ..." I concentrated on looking at the open eye.

Isn't it a bit weird to have brown eyes when you're a redhead and your skin is snow white?

–You are two and I, one.

No problem, okay?

He took another look at the youth room.

"Thank you," he said. I walked her to Mom and Dad's room. Had thoroughly ventilated. I don't like to notice people's smell, regardless of whether it is good or bad. Except for Carl. Carl might not smell good, but he smelled like he was supposed to. It smelled like me. U.S. When Carl got sick in winter, which was often the case, I would go to his bed. He always smelled the way he should, even though he was sweating with a fever and his breath reeked of vomit. I inhaled the scent of Carl and, shivering with cold, I hugged his burning body, and the heat that he gave off warmed my bones. The fever of one was the stove of the other. Living in the mountains makes you a practical man.

Shannon walked to the window and looked out.

He had kept his coat buttoned.

I suppose it seemed to him that it was cold in the house.

It was September.

In winter he was going to have a very bad time.

I heard Carl carrying the suitcases up the narrow staircase.

"Carl says you're not rich," he said.

But that everything you see from here belongs to both of you.

-That's how it is.

But they are just pastures.

- Pastures?

"Uncultivated land," Carl said from the doorway, smiling breathlessly.

Pastures for sheep and goats.

Very little can be grown on a mountain farm.

As you can see, there are hardly any trees.

But we will do something with the horizon line.

Don't you think, Roy?

Asentí con la cabeza lentamente, como había visto hacer a los campesinos cuando era niño. Entonces yo creía que sus frentes arrugadas ocultaban tales pensamientos y de tanta complejidad que hubieran tardado demasiado en explicarlos, o les habría sido imposible expresarlos en el sencillo dialecto del pueblo. Además, esos hombres mayores parecían entenderse entre sí de forma telepática, puesto que cuando uno asentía en silencio los demás también lo hacían. En ese momento también yo asentía con la cabeza, aunque a duras penas entendía muchas más cosas ahora que entonces.

Por supuesto que podría haberle preguntado a Carl, pero no me habría respondido. Tendría respuestas, sí, muchas, pero no la respuesta. Quizá ni siquiera la necesitara. Estaba contento de que Carl hubiera vuelto a casa y de momento no tenía intención de molestarlo con esa pregunta: ¿por qué demonios había vuelto?

–Qué bueno es Roy –dijo Shannon–. Nos ha dejado esta habitación.

–Imagino que no habrás vuelto para instalarte en el cuarto de los niños –dije. Carl asintió con la cabeza. Despacio.

–A cambio, esto no es gran cosa –dijo mostrándome un gran cartón. Vi al instante lo que era. Tabaco de mascar Berry.

–Joder, cómo me alegro de volver a verte, hermano –dijo Carl con voz llorosa. Se acercó y volvió a rodearme con sus brazos. Esta vez me abrazó de verdad. Yo también. Sentí que se cuerpo se había ablandado un poco, estaba más gordo. Noté la piel de su mejilla más floja, y la barba raspaba aunque iba recién afeitado. El traje de lana que llevaba parecía de buena calidad, y la camisa; antes nunca llevaba camisa. Incluso hablaba diferente, tenía el acento de ciudad que empleábamos para imitar a mamá. Pero nada de eso importaba. Olía como siempre. Olía a Carl. Me apartó para observarme. Los ojos, de una belleza femenina, le brillaban. Joder, seguro que los míos también.

–El café está listo –dije con voz un poco entrecortada y fui hacia la escalera. Esa noche me quedé escuchando en la cama. Quería notar si la casa tenía otros sonidos ahora que había más gente otra vez. No era el caso. Crujía, carraspeaba y silbaba como siempre. También estaba pendiente de los ruidos que llegaban del master bedroom. Aunque los dos dormitorios están separados por el baño, las paredes son tan finas que se oye todo, y podía distinguir voces.

¿Estarían hablando de mí? ¿Le estaría preguntando Shannon a Carl si su hermano mayor siempre era tan callado? ¿Si me había gustado el chili con carne que ella había cocinado? ¿Si a ese hermano silencioso le había gustado de verdad el regalo que ella le había traído y que le había costado mucho conseguir a través de familiares, una matrícula usada de Barbados? ¿No le había caído bien a su hermano mayor? Y Carl respondía que Roy era así con todo el mundo, que tenía que darle tiempo. Y ella diría que pensaba que tal vez Roy estaba  celoso de ella, que seguro que Roy sentía que le había quitado a su hermano, el único que tenía. Y Carl se echaría a reír y le diría que no debía darle vueltas a eso después de un día nada más, que todo se arreglaría. Y ella apoyaría la cabeza en su hombro y diría que seguramente tenía razón, pero que se alegraba de que Carl no fuera como su hermano. Que en un país con un índice de criminalidad casi inexistente era raro que alguien fuese por la vida mirando alrededor como si temiera que fueran a atacarle. Quizá estuvieran haciéndolo. En la cama de mamá y papá.

–¿Quién se puso arriba? –les preguntaría por la mañana en el desayuno–. ¿El mayor?

Observaría sus gestos de sorpresa. Al salir notaría el aire de la mañana, me metería en el coche, soltaría el freno de mano, sentiría un hormigueo, vería Geitesvingen acercándose. Del exterior llegó una nota bella, larga y triste. Un chorlito dorado. El ave solitaria de la montaña, un ave flacucha y seria. Un pájaro que te sigue cuando sales a caminar, te cuida, pero siempre a una distancia segura. Como si tuviera demasiado miedo para hacer un amigo, pero a la vez necesitara alguien que lo escuchara cuando canta a su soledad.

Source: elparis

All life articles on 2021-05-07

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